Comicsgirl

Archive for April, 2009

Tick: The Complete Edlund Buy at tfaw.com

The Tick was my first indie comic.

Back in the early ’90s, I had a couple of letters published in a couple of issues of a title I will not name, and this being the era when they would actually include your home address (it was before the Internet reached saturation, OK?), some people wrote me back. One became a very good friend. And he, among other things, sent me The Tick Omnibus and a few issues (I think I had at least through issue #9, if not through issue #12).

All of this was before the cartoon, before the live-action TV show, before creator Ben Edlund was writing and producing alongside Joss Whedon (all of which I’ll get to in a bit).

Edlund’s broad parody of superheroes, following an insane asylum escapee in a blue suit calling himself the Tick, still works pretty well. The Clark Oppenheimer bits in the earlier issues are a little obvious (who hasn’t made fun of Superman’s secret identity? Before or since?) but The Tick’s utter cluelessness is still fun.

Some of the references are a little dated — Oedipus serving as a stand-in for Frank Miller-era Elektra, the obsession with ninjas — but it’s still self-consciously delightful (and probably no more dated than Watchmen is now and people still love that). This was what comics were like in the 1980s and early ’90s. There was a lot to laugh at.

I was honestly surprised to see how well-paced this was. It’s not a gag-a-minute but it actually does tell a story (what it is, of course) and The Tick is fun to watch. Oedipus, even as a broad parody, is a likable heroine, and the ninjas are so goofy that they’re not much of a threat. The final issue in this volume, “Villians, Inc.” where superheroes hire bad guys to fight to create a reputation for themselves, does point to the preposterous nature of most comics and lets Edlund play with some bigger ideas.

It may not necessarily be the most relevant comic now, but it still works. It’s still fun. I was greatly entertained.

So back to all the other things.

Yes, in 1994, The Tick became a Saturday morning cartoon on Fox. At the time, I thought this was really cool but I don’t think it quite registered how bizarre it was to have this happen. I’d known about The Tick for a couple of years, after all, and it felt pretty much like common knowledge to me, even if it wasn’t.

In some ways, I think the cartoon worked better than the comic series. It was pretty faithful to the spirit of the series but it removed some of the darkness and just allowed the goofiness to shine through. It still had characters like Chairface Chippendale (and the Man-Eating Cow. I never got my Man-Eating Cow action figure, though, and I am still sad about that) but took away characters like the Chainsaw Vigilante, who always felt a little out of place to me. It gave us such villains like The Evil Midnight Bomber and awesome Galactus parody Omnipotus. The Tick cartoon was good stuff.

Here’s the opening:

The Tick live-action series started in November 2001 and ran for 8 episodes. People didn’t watch it because I don’t think too many people were in the mood to laugh then. I was one of the 10 people who liked it. Patrick Warburton was born to be The Tick and I liked that the series focused more on the mundane issues of every day life than the whole fighting crime aspect (because, after all, part of the point of The Tick was that none of the characters was really that good at being a superhero). It’s available on DVD or you can watch the entire series on Hulu.

This is my favorite episode, mostly because of the always-awesome Ron Perlman, but because of the hilarious gracefulness they handle the innuendo of superheroes and their sidekicks:

Like I mentioned, Ben Edlund went on to produce a few episodes of Firefly (and wrote one of my favorite episodes of the series, “Jaynestown”). He also co-wrote and directed the “Smile Time” episode of “Angel,” where our title character turns into a puppet. Sadly, neither are online. But I love that Edlund was able to take his sense of humor and translate it into these shows. He’s also worked on some episodes of The Venture Bros., which is highly appropriate.

I suppose none of that has much to do with The Tick as a comic, though, but I’ve loved following Edlund as a creator over the years. I still enjoy The Tick in all of its incarnations, sure, but I think it’s cool the diversity of projects Edlund is doing now.

Fablewood Anthology Buy at Amazon

Released last year by Ape Entertainment, Fablewood Anthology is obviously drawing on the popularity of the Flight volumes. While the two projects share a lot in common — up-and-coming creators telling fantastic tales — Fablewood Anthology is much more slight and much more uneven.

Opening with Flight alumnus JP Ahonen’s wistful story “Solace,” Fablewood does start out strong. After that, though, the subsequent tales swing up and down, from the disappointingly undeveloped “A Vicious Cirlce” by J.J. Nass and Eleanor Cooper to the stunningly beautiful “Under the Midnight Sun” by Dusty Neal and Chris Studabaker.

When the stories here deviate from the typical sword-and-sorcery fantasy, like Sarah Mensinga’s wordless “Fish” rendered in soft pen and ink and watercolors, they do better. Instead, too many of these stories just feel like the beginnings of ideas, like Daniel Lafrance’s “Unworthy.” I was left wanting to know what our nameless main character was doing alone in the snowy mountain pass, but was instead just offered a spurt of violence and mysterious lesson. I liked Lafrance’s art — he has a heavy line and sort of dramatic, pulpy style — but I wanted more from the story.

Perhaps if there are future volumes of Fablewood, some of these characters and scenarios will be further developed. But as it is, I was left unsatisfied by a lot of what was here. I enjoyed reading this anthology and it’s worth a look, but for the most part, little here excited me. I don’t know how many of these creators I’ll seek out elsewhere.

This Saturday is Free Comic Book Day, which coincides nicely with the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine (it’s like … they planned it or something!) and is, in my mind, the very unofficial kickoff to summer.

Free Comic Book Day is always a good time and an inexpensive way to be introduced to comics you may have not otherwise picked up and there is something for every taste (and trust me, if you have any interest in a free title, just get it — I didn’t pick up Umbrella Academy and I still feel stupid about it). And anyway, who doesn’t like free stuff? There are few better things than spending a warm spring Saturday afternoon in your local comic book store.

X-Men Trilogy 3-DVD Box Set Buy at Amazon

I’m feeling a little too tired to attempt a double feature tonight. And since X-Men Origins: Wolverine is out next Friday, I figured this was as good of a time as any to re-watch the first X-Men movie.

This came out nine years ago. I find that incredible. I think a lot of comic book fans never thought it would happen, too. I don’t think I did. And I don’t think anyone thought it was going to be this good. X-Men definitely opened the door to superhero movies of quality and Bryan Singer made other “serious” directors think there was something to this whole thing.

In a bit of dream casting, we got Patrick Stewart as Professor X. We have have a knight as Oscar winners (even if one of them is in a bad wig). Of course, on the flip side, we have a couple of actors who aren’t really of note and, well, a supermodel and professional wrestler. But still, as far as the cast goes, this was pretty amazing.

After starting in an expected place — a concentration camp in Poland in 1944, the rest of the plot is probably too set-up as the X-Men assembles, but a lot of things are done right here. Wolverine’s relationship with Rogue is evocative of his relationships with characters like Kitty Pryde and Jubilee in the comic. He’s a troubled, somewhat unstable character, but he could also serve as the right sort of father-figure for Rogue. Wolverine’s sparring with Cyclops over Jean Grey is also fun stuff.

The friendship/rivalry between Professor X and Magneto is also gracefully handled. Their desires for mutants aren’t too far apart, but there are crucial differences that separate them. I like that this kept Magneto from being one-dimensionally evil. He was a villain to sympathize with.

The Senator Kelly stuff doesn’t quite work. Or at least, it doesn’t work as well as it could. Storm is also pretty useless. The effects look a little dated at this point, although still not terrible.

Nearly 10 years later, X-Men remains one of the more effective comic book superhero movies made. It’s true to the spirit of the comics and it’s still satisfying (the other two are … less so. The second one is still good. The third … well …). Watching it, I do feel excited for Wolverine. I think that’s a pretty cool thing, personally.

(Yes, I know the Amazon link is to the box set of all three, but I figured it was cheap enough. You can still find the first one and it seems to be under $10 at this point.)

Water Baby Buy at tfaw.com!

I realize it’s a little moot to review Water Baby at this point, one of the titles in the defunct Minx line from DC Comics, but it’s still worthy of a discussion.

Out of the Minx titles, I wasn’t particularly interested in Ross Campbell’s Water Baby at first. I passed up picking up an advance copy at the MoCCA Art Festival last year. Then I started reading Campbell’s Wet Moon and I kicked myself. Campbell has an uncanny understanding of what it’s like to be a late adolescent teenage girl. I really have no idea how he’s been gifted with this knowledge, but I am in awe of it.

Water Baby follows surfer girl Brody, who has had her leg bit off by a shark. After the stunning and graphic initial sequence, the story picks up a year later when Brody’s ex-boyfriend Jake returns to her life. After some ups and downs, she drags him and her friend Louisa on a road trip to take Jake back to New York state.

The story ends a little abruptly, but I like where Campbell finishes things. Brody’s allowed to be a strong, young woman on her own. That seems like a rare thing in a lot of young adult literature.

Brody is surprisingly physical — I almost want to use the word “vulgar” here, but I think it implies the wrong things. She’s tattooed with a shaved head, bisexual (or at least, her sexuality is fluid). She doesn’t like to shower and she enjoys belching and picking her nose. Brody likes to control her physicality — even before she lost her leg to the shark — and I think that’s refreshing. She’s delightfully earthy, even if she’s sometimes off-putting. She doesn’t care much of what anyone thinks of her.

The sequences of her nightmares are amazing. Campbell renders them wordlessly and Brody sometimes morphs into a shark, or a shark morphs into a man. It’s a revealing insight to Brody, who, for all her matter-of-factness, is still haunted by her accident, but also seems to understand her own power.

I love the way Campbell draws women. He certainly has a fetishistic love for tattooed and pierced women, but his girls have curves and weight in the way real women do. He draws them in all shapes, sizes and colors, something that’s incredibly refreshing.

Water Baby is what I always wanted the Minx line to be — something that teenage girls could see themselves in. This title, along with The New York Four, shows what the line was capable of, even when I had problems with it. I’m still sad that the line wasn’t given enough of a chance to succeed.

There. I said it.

I’ve been avoiding this issue. I figured I’d wait until the comic came out to talk about it. But I do want to bring it up.

At some point recently, you’ve probably read about this. People saw the image, read the whole “Sex in the City” bit and the outcry was predictably understandable.

But I don’t think a lot of people actually read what was being said, or bothered to look a little bit deeper into who was behind it.

Yes, that cover image is ridiculously terrible. Yes, the title is incredibly stupid. And maybe the whole “superheroines do Sex in the City” idea isn’t the most thoughtful, but as a concept goes, it’s not a terrible one.

But let’s move past that for a moment.

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is writing the title. I saw Rorschach Theatre’s production of his play, Rough Magic, a couple of years ago, and it was awesome, geeky fun with smart, strong female characters and a literate sense of humor. While I am not one who believes gay men can always speak for women, I think Aguirre-Sacasa’s part about the comic being about “to be a woman in an industry dominated by testosterone and guns. (And I mean both the super hero industry and the comic book industry)” is interesting. As a gay man, I think he understands that the hyper heterosexual masculinity can be alienating to anyone who’s not a straight male.

And then, there’s the art of Tonci Zonjic, which is pretty awesome and is something I’d be delighted to see in a comic about young women trying to balance romance and careers while they’re, oh yeah, superheroines. It’s definitely a far cry from that promotional art. (This title seems to have the opposite problem of Marvel’s Pride and Prejudice adaptation, which had a great cover and bad art on the inside.)

Will Marvel Divas be good? I don’t know. But the elements seem like they’re in the right place. I do hope that people who would connect with this comic — those who seem to be the most vocally against it — will give it a chance. I’m going to.

(And yes, Marvel doesn’t know how to market to women. I think we’ve figured that out. I mean, I still want my lip gloss, after all.)

Image taken from Tonci Zonjic’s Flickr gallery. I most definitely want superhero comics that look like that. Tonci Zonjic says this was actually a tryout for the title.

I didn’t get to Stumptown in Portland, Ore., this year due to a lack of funds. But fortunately, I know Christopher Gutierrez, owner of Night Light Lounge in Portland. He was awesome enough to write up this report for me:

Apparently, Portland is second only to NYC as far as the number of comic publishers and creators that live here. I wouldn’t have guessed it, but it’s not a big surprise either. I take it for granted that people are creative around here. Everyone’s either painting, in a band, writing something, animating something, or all of the above. And, as I learned at the Stumptown Comics Fest, the rest are making comic books.

For me, as a casual comic book reader, the only reason to go to a convention is to check out the independent publishers, and this one certainly delivered on that (although I also love the terrible costumes, which this one was disappointingly devoid of). The local heavy hitters were on hand of course, with tables by Top Shelf, Oni, & Dark Horse, but I was pleased to see that they weren’t anchoring the floor. They had the same set-ups of the single title self-publishers or the public library.

Going over the 134 tables, of which I’d estimate half were self-publishers, reminded me of rifling through the zine bins at punk shows as a kid. And just like those punk shows, there was a decidedly local & DIY feel to the con.

I was a little daunted by the sheer mass of autobiographical & relationship books. Without some kind of connection or insight to the work, these are generally an auto-pass for me.  My tastes are stereotypical geek-boy: I’m a sucker for anything post-apocalyptic (Freak Angels, Walking Dead, Daybreak), and will also buy pretty much anything with a robot. The robots were represented in force, but I didn’t find many zombies.

The only panel I attended was on the business side of the industry, which was full of people busily taking notes on the bad copyright advice being given. Meh.

If there was a star of the show, judging by the size of his line I’d say it was Jeff Smith of Bone fame. An honorable mention goes out to I Saw You… (the illustrated craigslist missed connections anthology), which was a guerrilla entry, making it’s way to the top because I noticed it on about a dozen different tables.

My personal prize of the show was a $8 tin of mustache wax, which came with a free copy of last year’s Mustaches: For Fun and Profit (although there were no silly costumes on the convention floor, the mustaches were out in full effect).

There were a few other items that caught my eye, amongst them:

• Sid Love. A “choose your own comic” about a plot to take over the world with genetically engineered squirrels or some such, with each potential ending leading to an MP3 online (a little gimmicky, but he made at least one sale with it).
• Dar. A bio / relationship book that I can accept because it’s in strip form (in addition to being well written & drawn)
• I finally picked up Blankets by Craig Thompson (that motherfucker is heavy)

If you’re in town next year, I highly recommend stopping by. Or for a taste of something similar coming up, check out the Portland Zine Symposium in July.

So a big thank you to Chris for allowing me to experience this vicariously. Check out Chris’ blog Slacker DIY and go hang out at his bar.

It’s back by popular demand. Or by the demand of one loyal friend who sent me DVD who made this possible.

Death Note DVD Buy at Amazon

Prior to watching this, I knew exactly one thing about Death Note: The kids like it.

The live-action version of the manga and anime series is sharp and saturated. The movie feels very stylized. As main character Light Yagami, actor Tatsuya Fujiwara looks a lot like a pop star — he’s too attractive for his own good. He doesn’t look like any college law student I know of.

Light finds a notebook in which he can write the names of anyone and lead to their deaths. The plot is overall a little misanthropic but at the same time, I can understand why the idea resonates with teenagers. It’s not nearly as disturbing as I thought it would be — the deaths are pretty bloodless, overall. Light is pretty unlikeable as the movie progresses, which is part of the point. Obviously, there’s some idea of what “justice” means — is it the law, or is it vigilantism?

I think the death god, Ryuk, could’ve been better. He’s rendered in CGI and looks like a World of Warcraft avatar that’s a cross between David Bowie and the Crow. I would’ve rather seen someone dressed up in a costume and makeup, personally.

Death Note was a little long as a movie. I think the bits with “L” (who looked, intentionally, a lot like Ryuk) were too drawn out and some plot points were obvious (of course Light’s dad was on the police force and involved with the investigation). Still, it was stylish and entertaining. I can see why teenagers like this story, and I certainly don’t mean that as a bad thing.

20th Century Boys Region 3 DVD Buy at YesAsia

Based on Naoki Urasawa’s manga series, 20th Century Boys centers on former rock musician Kenji and a story he and his friends came up with in his childhood. In 1997, where a bulk of the story takes place, a cult led by a mysterious man known only as Friend is tied to “prophecies” Kenji made up nearly 20 years ago. Charged with taking care of his sister’s little girl, Kenji becomes a reluctant hero as he unravels the mystery from his past and how it will affect his future — if he, or anyone else — has one. Kenji ends up gathering his childhood friends to fight Friend and his plans as the clock begins to tick toward the new century.

It’s something of a cop-out to say “Oh, I don’t want to give too much away” but part of the joy of this movie is how it unfolds and how the stakes are constantly being raised. It’s maybe a bit too long (it’s about two hours and 20 minutes) and could probably be tightened up, but it covers a lot of ground during that time, jumping from the past to the future to the present. It’s a great piece of science fiction, and while there are a lot of questions left unanswered at the end (as well as a “to be continued” and there are two more planned), there is something beautifully satisfying about this movie. I really hope this gets a release on DVD in the U.S. If you have a region-free DVD player, it’s worth seeking out.

Here is the T.Rex song, “20th Century Boy,” that the manga series sort of centers around.

Most stories dealing with gender transition are overtly earnest, and perhaps rightfully so. It’s a weighty subject that involves a lot of soul-searching and makes some people pretty uncomfortable.

Joey Alison Sayers, however, took a different approach in telling her story of transitioning in Just So You Know #1. The result is delightful and hilarious and shows the lighter side to something that is often presented as a troubled time.

Sharing the distinctive round heads and broad facial expressions as her strip Thingpart, much of the humor here comes from every-day situations, such as her coming out to her parents (their reaction isn’t what you’d expect) to her excitement over her new driver’s license, which she doesn’t get to show off nearly enough. The recurring “Am I a Bitch Now?” tracks her progress in the less-than-pleasant side of being female (although I’d like to say that I think snarking about people isn’t exclusive to either gender).

I liked her story about Small Press Expo, where two fans who thought J. Sayers was a “dude” kind of shrug it off when she tells them “Oh, I was, but not anymore!” I think that moment is prrepresentative of Sayers’ attitude throughout this whole comic — it’s down-to-earth and honest. That’s a really beautiful thing.

I think ultimately we all want to be seen for who we know we are on the inside. Just So You Know #1 is a touching and joyful expression of that and I’m glad that Sayers shared it with us.

See samples of Just So You Know and purchase at Joey Alison Sayers’ site.

He still makes a couple of good points, but seriously? “The essential comic book geek’s guide to women and dating and sharing the love”?

He covered all the comics that always get recommended to women. Really, spend about two minutes and you can make the list yourself (although it was kind of cool to see Ross Campbell’s Wet Moon in there. And while I like that comic quite a bit, I honestly think my boyfriend likes it more than I do). And no superhero stuff other than Watchmen? There are many superhero comics I’d recommend to the generic woman in this scenario first before Watchmen.

If an individual woman doesn’t care about comics, that’s cool. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Some people love film the most, some people love music. Some love theater. Sure, people can love all three, but we all have our favorites and that’s what makes us unique.

And I guess that’s the problem with these sorts of lists. Yes, maybe I would recommend The Sandman or Blue Monday to women, but only on a case-by-case basis. These sorts of articles — “how to get girls to like comics” — don’t really take into account that women are individual people. My mom read Nick Abadzis’ Laika and loved it, but I don’t think that necessarily means she’s going to love Charles Burns’ Black Hole. A woman I’d recommend Jessica Abel’s La Perdida may not be the same woman I’d recommend Ai Yazawa’s NANA to.

Also, why is it so important for all these hypothetical girlfriends to like comics? Yes, I understand sharing interests and hobbies with one’s significant other, but what if the hypothetical girlfriend really loved jazz or New Wave French films or something? Are the comic-book loving men that write these sorts of pieces interested in sharing those interests? Or is it just all about getting the girls to accept comic books?

Nana O., played by Mika Nakashima, and Ren, played by Ryuhei Matsuda, from NANA live-action movie, released by VIZ Media in the U.S. Seemed appropriate to me.